


lions lay down with lambs and colours mix with whites

by messedupforever



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Violence, M/M, Some angst, but so in love, different timeline, lots of feels, robert is a mormon missionary so there's that, the boys are so in denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 07:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12551932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messedupforever/pseuds/messedupforever
Summary: moving into a flat in leeds with his best friend, aaron expected an easy life full of shifts at the bar, lazy days and messy nights. he didn’t expect to end up living across the hall from two mormon missionaries – and definitely didn’t expect to fall for one of them.robert sugden, said missionary, had his life planned out to the letter, and the scruffy bartender across the hall was never a part of those plans – but it turned out he just couldn’t stay away.





	lions lay down with lambs and colours mix with whites

**Author's Note:**

> au loosely based on the movie ‘latter days’ – not at all necessary to have seen it but in general would 100% recommend as it’s fab. fic title is also from here.
> 
> in this universe, aaron and adam are 20, robert is 23, and chrissie is 25 (so no lachlan – and no rebecca either because why not). robert grew up in a different village, so has no ties to emmerdale, and jack sent him away at 15. jack is still alive but is only mentioned, and vic is closer in age to robert than in the show. aaron’s childhood is the same, but gordon’s trial has already happened, and there was no jackson or ed. 
> 
> as a warning, there are references to gordon and to aaron’s self-harm, and to jack hitting robert, but nothing graphic.
> 
> i don’t have massive knowledge of mormonism and couldn’t find all the exact information i wanted when looking things up, so apologies if there are any inaccuracies.

 

 

 

 

“This is going to be so mint, man!” Adam grinned widely as he carried the last of the boxes into the flat. “You and me, living together. Me and my best bro.” He dumped the box and plonked himself down on the sofa beside Aaron, helping himself to a can of beer from the six-pack Aaron had just opened.

“And working together. Gonna get sick of seeing your ugly mug all the time.” Aaron took a swig of his drink and sank back into the sofa cushions, exhausted after a long day of assembling furniture and lugging around heavy boxes. The place was already starting to come together, though, and he was proud of the work they’d done that day.

Adam elbowed him playfully in his side. “You can always go move back in with your mum,” he said, laughing.

“Not a chance,” Aaron replied. “I’m sure I can put up with ya.” Aaron loved his mum, had gotten a lot closer with her after moving out of his dad’s aged sixteen and going to live with her, and after telling her the truth about Gordon a year before she had supported him in going to the police and right through the trial. Emmerdale would always be his home, but Gordon was locked up now, and it was time to move on with his life. Him and Adam had gotten themselves a decent flat in Leeds, the rent not bad at all when split between the two of them. They were due to start their new bartending jobs at a bar just a couple of streets away in a few days. The alternating lunchtime and evening shifts would mean they would have plenty of time to laze around the flat playing video games and watching telly, maybe hitting the gym once or twice too, as well as nights off to go out, enjoy themselves and have a few too many. For once in his life, Aaron was excited to just be able to take it easy.

That was the plan, anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Chrissie said, hugging Robert tightly before he got into the back of the chauffeured car where Damian was already waiting.

“Me too,” Robert replied, as they pulled apart and stood facing each other. “But these six months are going to fly by, yeah? And then I’ll be back and we’ll be getting married, and everything will be amazing.”

“I’m going to miss having you around too, Robert. But you’re right, you’ll be back in no time at all.” Lawrence held out his hand rather than going in for a hug, but it wasn’t personal. He genuinely liked Robert; he just wasn’t a hugger. Robert accepted the handshake and gave his future father-in-law a hopeful smile.

“Thank you, Lawrence. Thanks for arranging all this, for sorting the flat and everything.”

“My pleasure. It’ll be good for you. And you’ll be doing lots of good for the Church at the same time.”

Robert turned to face his fiancée once more. “Goodbye,” he said.

“Bye, Robert,” she said, touching his arm briefly as he opened the door of the car. Waving wasn’t the kind of thing the Whites usually did – far too informal – but Robert found himself waving at Lawrence and Chrissie as he settled himself in the back of the car beside Damian, and they both waved back, even managing to smile as they did so. Robert felt slightly calmer as the car set off for the fifty-mile journey to what would be his temporary new life in Leeds. Six months, that’s all he had to put in, and then he would be able to marry the girl of his dreams, a country house and a decent position within Lawrence’s company already lined up for him. Life was good, life was easy, everything was in place. He had happiness, he had stability, he had everything he never thought he would. He definitely wasn’t going to do anything to ruin that.

 

 

 

 

 

Aaron’s first few weeks in Leeds were just as easy and straightforward as he’d thought they were going to be. He quickly got to grips with the bar work, and as him and Adam mostly worked different shifts they didn’t get the chance to get too sick of each other. When they both had a night off they would usually go out, determined to try out as many of the local bars and clubs as they could. In those first few weeks, Aaron hooked up with a couple of guys, and Adam with a couple of girls, but neither of them were looking for anything serious, instead just wanting to enjoy themselves and keep things simple.

One Monday, Aaron returned to the flat in the late afternoon after a lunchtime shift at the bar. He was tired, having been out the night before, and all he wanted to do was have a hot shower, order in some food and chill out with Adam, maybe stick a film on or catch up on the football.

On his way up the stairs to the second floor, he walked behind two guys, probably a few years older than him, each carrying a large cardboard box. They weren’t talking, and Aaron wasn’t sure how he could tell but it seemed to be a hostile silence rather than a comfortable one, which wasn’t a good sign as they appeared to be moving in together. They were dressed very similarly, both sporting long-sleeved white shirts and plain beige trousers. The clothes should have been unflattering on anybody, and they certainly were on the dark-haired, slightly shorter man on the left, but Aaron couldn’t help noticing that, even in those awful trousers, the other man, the blond one, had a _great_ arse. He wished he could see his face, but there were definitely worse sights to climb the stairs to.

The two men stopped outside the door opposite Aaron and Adam’s flat. They noticed Aaron stopping outside of his own door and fishing in his pocket for his keys, and both turned to look at him. The blond one smiled at him, while the dark one scowled.

“Guessing you’re the new neighbours,” Aaron said in what he hoped was a friendly tone despite the look that the dark one was giving him. “I’m Aaron. I live here with my mate Adam.” He gestured towards his front door.

“I’m Robert.” It was the blond one who spoke, and he held out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Aaron said as they shook hands. God, he really hoped he wasn’t about to start blushing. His new neighbour did not need to know how instantly attracted to him he found himself.

“Damian.” The other man spoke, not moving any closer to Aaron or going in for a handshake.

“Good to meet you.” Aaron forced himself to remain polite, despite his instinctive urge being to punch the guy. Damian didn’t reply, instead simply nodding at Aaron and then opening the door to his flat, although he remained standing in front of it. “You guys need any help bringing your stuff up?” Aaron asked, aiming the question towards Robert.

“These are the last of the boxes. Thanks though.” Robert smiled at him again. Aaron tried not to think about the fact that this stranger’s smile was already doing things to him.

“Oh, right.” At that moment, Aaron’s door opened and Adam wandered out into the hallway.

“Thought I heard you out here,” he said to Aaron. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, was just saying hi to the new neighbours. Robert and Damian.” He turned slightly as if addressing both of them, although really he was only looking at Robert. “This is Adam.” Robert and Adam shook hands, Damian again only offering a nod.

“You’re welcome to come round ours for a beer later,” Adam said. Aaron tried not to show that he felt secretly thrilled at his best friend’s words. He’d wanted to invite them – well, to invite Robert – but had felt awkward at the thought of asking. He was suddenly glad that Adam was the more outgoing of the two of them. “Moving’s not easy work. Or some other night.”

“Thanks, but – “ Robert began.

He was interrupted by Damian, who glared at Aaron and Adam. “We don’t drink.”

“Oh,” Adam said, sharing an awkward glance with Aaron. He was about to offer a coffee instead when Damian spoke again.

“We’re not allowed to. We’re Mormon missionaries,” he said matter-of-factly. If it had been Robert who had said it, Aaron might have thought he was joking, but Damian didn’t seem like the type to make jokes. And although Aaron knew next to nothing about Mormonism, he found himself thinking that maybe Damian’s announcement did explain the clothes. He looked at Adam again, neither of them knowing what to say.

“Probably not the kind of neighbours you were expecting,” Robert said, breaking the silence. He spoke lightly, earning himself a scathing look from Damian.

“I’m sure they don’t have a problem with it,” Damian said bitterly, as if daring Aaron or Adam to disagree with him.

“Of course not,” Adam said immediately.

“We’ll only be living here six months anyway.” Damian was clearly on the defensive, despite Aaron and Adam not having said anything to suggest there would be an issue. “We’re not on an official mission, just six months of missionary work before we get married.”

“I’m assuming not to each other,” Aaron found himself saying without thinking. Adam laughed out loud and Robert smiled awkwardly, but Damian looked furious.

“Is that your idea of a joke?” he practically spat. He put down – or more accurately threw down – the box he was holding, and took a step towards Aaron. “Homosexuality is not a joke. It’s an abomination. Clearly you’re not religious, but have some respect.”

“Maybe I’m not, but if there is a God, I’d like to think he’s got more important things to be worrying about.” He pushed open the door to his flat, Adam having left it unlocked. “And I’m gay, by the way. Hopefully that won’t make you lose too much sleep. Pleasure meeting you.” With that, Aaron walked into the flat, pulling Adam in behind him and then slamming the door shut without a backward glance at their new neighbours.

 

 

 

 

 

Unsurprisingly, it was difficult for Aaron to avoid the two men living across the hall. If he wasn’t too hungover from the night before, he liked to hit the gym in the mornings, conscious that although he was young and fit the late nights and regular takeaways would soon start to catch up with him if he didn’t keep an eye on things. And when he didn’t feel like going to the gym, he still naturally tended to rise early, and so would often go and grab a coffee from the café down the street, or even just go for a walk. He liked living in the city, but having lived in Emmerdale for the last four years he was used to having plenty of open space around him that always helped him to clear his head. The streets of central Leeds weren’t quite the same, but the fresh air still helped, and he realised that he didn’t feel the need to escape quite as much as he had before. Despite having to live next door to two homophobic Mormons, he was happier than he’d been in a long time.

Robert was also up early every morning, although out of duty rather than optional walks or trips to the gym. On Sundays the first church service was at nine a.m., and then throughout the week, after a brief discussion of which areas they were going to focus on that day, he and Damian would head out into the city and the surrounding areas to _‘spread the word of our loving God and saviour’_ , as the pamphlets put it. Robert would never have said so to Damian – and definitely not to Lawrence – but the whole thing seemed essentially futile to him. Leeds was hardly the Mormon capital of the world, and most people they spoke to just laughed at them, tried to politely tell them they weren’t interested, or told them outright to fuck off.

Still, Robert kept telling himself, it was only for six months. No time at all in the grand scheme of things. He could put up with anything for that amount of time, surely. He could stick out spending every day with Chrissie’s obnoxious cousin Damian, who despite only being a year older than Robert and participating in exactly the same level of missionary work made it clear that he viewed himself as inherently superior to Robert. He had been born into the religion, attending two church services every Sunday from birth, and had been home-schooled by his mother, Lawrence’s sister, who devoted herself to serving her son, her husband and her home, all ultimately in the name of serving God. His father, along with Lawrence, was a partner in a large company, and did a lot of work for the church too, therefore having little involvement with his son day-to-day but always managing to exert a strong influence over him, preparing him to one day follow in his footsteps. Robert on the other hand lacked what Damian saw as a traditional, stable upbringing, instead coming from a clearly dysfunctional family and only having come to the church at fifteen. He’d been lucky, falling in with the Whites. He wasn’t born for it, not like Damian was, and Damian made sure he knew it.

Robert only hoped that the six months would go quickly. Six short months, a bunch of awkward encounters with people unwilling to hear why God would pave the right path for them, and nights spent keeping quiet around Damian to avoid his lectures – and then he would be back with Chrissie, and they would be getting married, and then he would be set for life. He was sure that once he got away from Leeds, he would stop thinking about the dark-haired, bearded man across the hall who glared at him whenever they made eye contact in the mornings too. It was a _tiny_ crush, if that. He was just missing Chrissie. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t.

The pit in Robert’s stomach when he returned one evening to find Aaron shoved up against the wall in the hallway, some tall, muscly guy kissing him deeply and running his hands all over him, didn’t mean anything. He definitely wasn’t wishing that he could trade places with the guy, who for no logical reason did _not_ look good enough for Aaron. The two of them seemed completely wrapped up in each other, ignoring Damian’s loud comments about how disgusting they were, and thankfully not seeing the envious stare Robert couldn’t help giving them as he followed Damian into their flat.

Robert had it under control. He’d been keeping things inside all his life, and he wasn’t about to lose control, not over some guy he hardly knew, who he was pretty sure hated him, and who it wasn’t as if he _really_ fancied anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

“How did it go with Tom, then?” Adam asked as soon as Aaron entered the front room, so eagerly that he even paused the television.

“Good, yeah.” Aaron mumbled the words slightly, not looking in Adam’s direction and instead heading to pour a cup of coffee.

“Geez, you don’t give much away, do you? You gonna see him again?”

“Doubt it.” Aaron took a quick gulp of coffee, but then discarded the still almost-full mug next to the sink, and headed back towards his bedroom. “I’m gonna go to the gym. See you at work later.” They had a rare shift together.

“Aaron, wait.” Adam stood up from the sofa, causing Aaron to sigh heavily and turn to walk towards him. “Is something wrong? I thought you liked him.”

“He was fine. Doesn’t mean I wanna spend more than a night with him.”

“But he wasn’t like the others. You’ve been talking to him for weeks. You’re still gonna see him all the time at the gym. Why sleep with him when you’re not really interested and make it awkward, why not just pick up some random instead?”

“Why are you so bothered? Just leave it, alright?”

“Is this about Robert?”

“Robert? As in the weird Mormon guy? What are you on about?” Aaron tried to appear nonchalant, to not speak too quickly, but he could feel his heartbeat increasing, his palms beginning to sweat slightly. _Get a grip, Aaron._

“You know what I’m on about. I’ve seen the way you look at him. It’s obvious you’ve got a thing for him.”

“I think you need your head checking, mate. He’s a bloody Mormon missionary, for crying out loud. And a prick if his roommate is anything to go by. Why on earth would I want someone like him?”

“Whatever you say.” Adam gave his best friend a knowing look, letting Aaron know he wasn’t fooling him one bit. Aaron simply glared at him and headed to grab his gym stuff before leaving the flat. It was later than he usually went, so it wasn’t as if he was expecting to see Robert on his way down, having picked up over the past month or so that they’d been neighbours that he left most mornings at almost the crack of dawn to go and do whatever it was that Mormon missionaries actually did all day.

He didn’t expect to see him, but that didn’t stop him being disappointed that he didn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 _Get it together, Robert. You can do this._ Robert had been hovering outside of Aaron’s door for several minutes, trying to mentally will himself to knock on the damned thing. He shouldn’t have been doing this. Damian was in their flat, Robert having told him he was nipping out for milk. If Damian found out where he really was then, well, that would take some explaining. Damian had already lectured him for merely suggesting that they try and be civil to their neighbours, and Robert knew that it was in his best interests to simply go along with everything the other man said.

But it had been more than a month since they’d moved in, and Robert still felt awful about the way Damian had spoken to Aaron that first day they’d met, and spoken _about_ Aaron multiple times since. He felt even worse about the fact that he hadn’t said anything himself, hadn’t stood up for Aaron. He didn’t want to think about why he felt such a strong need to.

Enough was enough, Robert had finally decided. He didn’t need Damian to tell him what to do. He was under no illusions – he knew Aaron most likely saw him as a carbon copy of Damian, and wouldn’t want anything to do with him. He told himself it would be enough if Aaron would accept his apology.

“Er, hi.” Aaron looked at Robert in confusion, Robert finally having pulled himself together and knocked on the door. It was early evening and Aaron was clearly fresh out of the shower, his hair damp and wearing a pair of (very thin) sweatpants and a long-sleeved black top.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to just – “ Robert felt himself stammering, forcing himself to look Aaron in the eye – and not look anywhere else – and hoping that his face didn’t give him away.

“It’s fine. What do you want?” Aaron spoke bluntly, a harsh edge to his voice. Not that Robert could blame him.

“To apologise. For, um, the way Damian spoke to you that day we first met you.”

“And why exactly are you telling me this? He’s clearly not sorry himself.”

“Well, I guess what I’m really sorry for is for just letting him say it and not saying anything.”

“It’s fine, Robert. I’m over it.” Aaron still looked pissed, in fact he looked close to telling Robert to fuck off. Regardless, Robert couldn’t stop the thrill he felt racing through him at hearing Aaron say his name.

“I just wanted you to know I _am_ sorry.”

“And it’s okay.” Robert dared to look him in the eye and saw his features soften, a hint of a smile even forming on the other man’s face. “I do appreciate it.”

Robert nervously smiled back. “See you, then.”

“See ya.” Aaron closed the door, but previously he would have slammed it in Robert’s face. Robert considered that an improvement. An improvement leading towards what, he wasn’t quite sure. All he knew was that there wasn’t a lot he wouldn’t do if it meant he would see Aaron smile again. He also knew that the way he was feeling about somebody he could absolutely under no circumstances _ever_ pursue was more than dangerous. It had the potential to ruin his life, the life he only had because of everything Lawrence and Chrissie had done for him.

He was worrying about nothing, Robert told himself as he walked to the corner shop to get the milk and then headed back to his flat for yet another evening of practising reciting Bible verses with Damian. He’d sorted things with Aaron, they were good now. Maybe the only reason he hadn’t been able to get Aaron out of his mind was because of how guilty he had felt. But now he knew Aaron didn’t hate him, and was willing to be civil towards him, and so he could move on, focus on his missionary work and his future marriage, the two certain things in his life. He would throw himself even more heavily into the next five months; he would wake earlier and extend his morning prayers, add a few houses to his daily visits, maybe spend an extra evening a week helping at the homeless shelter run by the church. He would be so busy he wouldn’t have time to think about the sulky, bearded man across the hall who had definitely _not_ turned his insides and his world upside down with the very first look he gave him.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert was certainly not oblivious to the change in his relationship with his neighbour following his apology and their first – albeit brief – conversation alone; in fact he was more aware of it than he was of any single other thing in his life.

Now, when they passed each other in the hall or walked down the stairs at the same time in the morning, they no longer ignored each other, and Aaron no longer looked at him as if he wanted to punch him. Instead, they would smile at each other, exchange friendly greetings, and sometimes even have actual conversations. Granted, they talked far more when Damian wasn’t around, which wasn’t very often, but Robert still felt as if he was making progress. Maybe they could even become friends.

He learnt that Aaron worked in a bar nearby, and that he had been best friends with Adam for four years. He learnt that he loved football and horror movies and hated champagne and fancy food. He learnt that his family all lived in a village called Emmerdale, which Robert vaguely knew of from what he remembered of his father’s farming connections. He didn’t learn much about his family beyond that, but then it wasn’t as if he offered anything about his either.

He learnt that Aaron’s eyes lit up into an even more dazzling shade of blue whenever he mentioned his younger sister or recounted something particularly funny that had happened at work, and that when he’d had a bad day he pulled the sleeves of his hoodie tightly over his hands and barely picked his feet up as he walked, and that he fidgeted with some kind of stone he carried in his pocket whenever the conversation veered towards his childhood or what he had been doing before moving to Leeds.

Robert knew those were the sorts of things he shouldn’t have been noticing.

Aaron learnt that Robert also came from a small village, but that he hadn’t been back there in a long time. He didn’t push him as to why he had no contact with his family, just as he took care to avoid bringing up Gordon. He learnt that he had been with his fiancée Chrissie since he was fifteen. He said all the right things when talking to Aaron about her, giving no verbal indication that she was anything other than the love of his life, and maybe it was just wishful thinking on Aaron’s part, but he sensed that there was far more to Robert’s true feelings than he was letting on. There was no doubt that he admired Chrissie, that he worshipped her, but Aaron wasn’t sure he loved her, not truly.

Or maybe Aaron just had a stupid crush that he needed to get the fuck over and needed to stop reading into things that weren’t there.

And even if he was right, even if Robert didn’t really love Chrissie, what did it matter? He was still going to marry her. There was still no chance that anything could or would ever happen between him and Aaron.

Aaron tried hooking up with people when he went out with Adam, but suddenly the feeling of some stranger’s lips on his was no longer exciting or intoxicating. No matter how drunk he got, he couldn’t move past the feeling that it should have been Robert’s tongue exploring his mouth, Robert’s fingers locked in his hair. He couldn’t kiss anybody without feeling suffocated, without feeling as if he was simply going through the motions because the only person he wanted was pretty much the last person he could ever hope to have.

He told himself he was being ridiculous. He hadn’t slept with Robert, hadn’t even kissed him. At most the two men had shared a few lingering looks but even that was probably all in Aaron’s imagination.

He still couldn’t admit it to himself, and definitely wouldn’t admit it to Adam, but he had it bad for Robert. _Really_ bad.

 

 

 

 

 

“You’ll definitely get the laundry done today, yeah?” Damian directed the question – command really – downwards as he stood over Robert, who was sitting at their kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal and trying not to look too pleased about the fact that he was spending his first Saturday in far too long without the other man. Damian had somehow really hit it off with an old woman they’d met a few days previously who lived on the other side of the city, and had arranged to go back over there to give her more information about their church. Robert suspected that the woman wasn’t particularly interested in becoming closer to God, but rather was lonely and had mistook Damian’s enthusiasm for his religion for him actually being a decent person worthy of spending a day with. Robert, of course, hadn’t said any of this – the mountain of household tasks he’d agreed to undertake seemed like a holiday compared to yet another day traipsing around with his roommate trying and almost always failing to even slightly convert the people of Leeds.

“You don’t have to keep reminding me.” Robert fought the urge to snap, but couldn’t stop himself being slightly blunt. He’d always been able to hold his own with Damian, but since they had started living together he had found himself becoming more and more agreeable to his flatmate’s demands in favour of an easy life, the result being that now, nearly two months in, Damian seemed to think he could treat him like a child.

But Robert knew how much Damian sucked up to Lawrence, and he couldn’t risk his future father-in-law hearing anything negative about his behaviour during the missionary work.

It was a good thing Damian couldn’t read Robert’s mind, because there had only really been one thing – or one neighbour – occupying it of late, and that would give Lawrence White far more of a reason to destroy the man who clearly wasn’t good enough for his daughter than would a few snarky remarks over breakfast.

“Great. See you later then.” Damian walked away with his back to Robert as he spoke, grabbing his keys and filling his shoulder bag with pamphlets and files as he headed towards the door.

“Bye,” Robert replied without looking up.

 

 

 

 

 

“We going out tonight?” Adam asked Aaron through a mouthful of toast, the two of them sitting at either end of the sofa with some music channel on in the background as they ate their breakfast.

“Sure, why not?” Aaron wasn’t particularly enthused by the idea, not the way he had been when they’d first moved to Leeds – or, truthfully, before he’d met Robert – but he supposed a night in town was better than a night at home feeling sorry for himself and trying to dodge Adam’s questions about why he hadn’t wanted to sleep with anyone lately.

“Great, man. I’ll be back a bit after nine. Don’t start drinking without me, yeah?”

“Sucks to be you, mate,” Aaron said, his laugh earning him a light punch in the arm. Adam was spending his Saturday working a ten-hour shift at the bar, while Aaron was looking forward to a day of doing absolutely fuck all and was more than a bit smug about it. The flat was a bit of a mess and he supposed he could do a bit of cleaning up, but he already knew it was going to be more of a case of shoving things out of the way rather than any kind of deep clean.

It was his day off, he was allowed to relax.

 

 

 

 

 

“Stupid bloody thing,” Robert grumbled aloud despite being alone in the flat. As pathetically sad as he knew it was, he got a weird kick out of being able to say the word ‘bloody’, so tame he doubted it counted as a swear word yet one he knew Damian would have a fit if he heard.

To his shame, Robert didn’t have a clue how to work the washing machine. Damian had always done the laundry since they had moved in, and the Whites had a housekeeper so he’d never had to worry about it. Damian had mentioned that it had been playing up a bit, but Robert hadn’t thought to ask anything more of it at the time, which he was now regretting, not only because he knew Damian would be furious if he didn’t get it done but also because he felt ridiculously embarrassed by the fact that at twenty-three years old he didn’t know how to do something so simple as work a washing machine.

Robert managed to switch it on but no matter how many times he attacked each and every button, nothing was happening. He had no way of knowing whether it was being temperamental because it was a cheap model – Lawrence having paid for everything and gone for minimal appliances and cheap brands to ‘teach them about the things that really matter’ despite owning a mansion in the country and being a partner in a thriving multi-million-pound estate company – or whether there was actually a perfectly simple solution and he was just being an idiot.

Either way, he didn’t have the answer; all he knew was that he needed to get the washing done. He didn’t know whether to be ashamed of how quickly the idea came to him to pop across the hall on the chance that Aaron was home and ask him if there was a launderette nearby. _Or Adam,_ he quickly told himself. There was no logical reason it had to be Aaron. It wasn’t as if he was glad of the excuse to potentially talk to him.

Of course he wasn’t.

 

 

 

 

“Oh, hey, Rob.” No-one called him Rob, and he was pretty sure this was the first time Aaron had. He had no idea why he liked it so much. “You alright?”

“Yeah, fine thanks, you?” He was far from fine, all too aware of his heart beating rapidly in his chest and his palms sweating as he shoved them into his pockets to pretend they weren’t. But it was hardly as if he could tell Aaron why he wasn’t. _No Aaron, I’m not alright, because even though you’re standing there wearing pyjama bottoms and a huge hoodie and there’s a bit of toothpaste on your chin, all I want to do is slam this door shut behind us and then fuck you against it._ No, there was no possible universe in which that could ever go down well.

“Yeah, I’m good. Day off today, so just chilling out.”

“Technically I’ve got the day off too – Damian’s doing the missionary stuff, gone to try and convert some woman we met the other day, but he’s left me with all the housework to do.”

“Surely he should do half of it?”

“Easier not to argue with him. Besides, it’s the one thing he’s not usually too bad with. It’s actually why I’m here – um, he always does the laundry, but I’ve got to do it today, and I think the washing machine’s broken – either that or I don’t actually know how to use it.”

“Wow, I know you said your fiancée’s family are posh, but now you’re telling me they’re _so_ posh you’ve never had to do your own laundry?”

“Hey, they’re not that posh. We just have a housekeeper. Not a house full of servants or anything.” He paused slightly as Aaron laughed. _God, that laugh._ “Okay, and a cook. But only for special occasions.” Aaron laughed again, the sound electric. _Get a grip, Sugden._

“Sounds posh enough to me.”

“So, anyway, I was wondering if you know of a launderette nearby? Damian will kill me if I don’t get it done today.”

“Pretty sure he wouldn’t, wouldn’t want to go against the ten commandments or whatever.”

“You’re right, he’d just make my life a misery for the next four months instead, which to be honest would probably be worse.”

“I really don’t know how you cope with living with him. Adam annoys me enough and he’s my best mate.”

“Guess I’ve just had to get used to it.”

“Sorry, you asked about the launderette, didn’t you? There’s one a few streets away, just down from where I work, but you’re welcome to use ours.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I don’t want to bother you.” Robert spoke far too quickly, not sure at that point which of the two of them he was trying to convince that Aaron didn’t make him lose his head.

“There’s no point dragging all your stuff down there and then paying for it as well when there’s a perfectly good machine right here. Unless you think Damian will somehow be able to tell that his clothes were washed in the home of a sinner?”

“I really am sorry about him.”

“I was just kidding, mate, you’re good. I couldn’t care less what he thinks of me. Tell you what, shall I come and have a look at your machine quickly, see if I can tell what’s actually up with it, then if not you can just come and use mine?”

“Are you sure you don’t mind? It’s your day off; I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

“Robert, it’s fine. I want to help you.” Aaron looked right at him, their eyes meeting for a good few seconds, and just for a tiny fleeting moment, Robert felt a flash of something. Hope, maybe. Hope that somehow Aaron might possibly feel something for him too.

As soon as the thought arose, Robert quickly shoved it to the back of his mind. Of course there was nothing between him and Aaron. There couldn’t be.

 

 

 

 

 

“Seems like it’s well and truly broken, mate, sorry,” Aaron said, finally admitting defeat after spending at least five minutes trying every button on the machine and switching it off and on again three times, all to no avail.

“Thanks for trying anyway.”

Aaron grabbed one of the baskets of clothes sat by the washing machine. “Come on, then,” he said to Robert, who was still just standing there with a helpless look on his face. Helpless and maybe something else, Aaron dared himself to think, just for a second. Maybe he was imagining it, but today Robert seemed weirdly nervous around him. A few weeks ago he would have assumed it was down to homophobia, but he knew Robert better than that now, or at least he thought he did.

As they carried the clothes over to Aaron’s flat, Aaron tried desperately to push away the thoughts of the other reason Robert might be nervous.

He was being ridiculous, he knew that. Just because he spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking about his neighbour didn’t mean there was any reason at all to think that Robert could possibly feel the same. There were plenty of reasons, however, why it was ludicrous to hope Robert could have any feelings for him. He was a Mormon, he was straight, he was engaged. You didn’t get three reasons much more solid than that.

 

 

 

 

 

“Aren’t you going to separate the colours and whites?” Aaron asked in confusion as he headed back towards his washing machine carrying a mug of tea for himself and a juice for Robert as apparently drinking tea was another thing Mormons weren’t allowed to do. Robert was kneeling in front of the machine, seemingly piling in random items of clothing without a second thought.

“Are you supposed to do that?” Robert turned to face Aaron and frowned.

“Are you being serious?” The baffled look on Robert’s face told Aaron that he was, and he couldn’t stop himself from laughing at the other man. “I know you’ve never done your own laundry, but I thought it went without saying that you have to separate the colours from the whites. Unless of course Damian doesn’t actually want his sheets and the six billion white shirts he seems to own to stay white.”

“I’m hopeless, aren’t I?” Robert tried to smile, tried to make a joke out of it, but Aaron could tell he felt defeated, embarrassed.

“Hey, it’s okay. Good thing you’ve got me here, eh? Come on, I’ll help you sort through them. I’ll just go put these down.” He quickly took the drinks through to the living room, setting them down on the coffee table before heading back to Robert.

“Thank you,” Robert said as they sat side-by-side sorting each basket of clothes into two piles.

“No problem.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Have you always been Mormon, then?” They were sitting on Aaron’s sofa, the first load having just gone into the machine, and they’d exhausted their usual small-talk topics of conversation, leading Aaron to ask the question he’d been wondering for a while. He didn’t doubt Robert’s physical commitment to his religion, but the few times it had come up in conversation when Damian hadn’t been around, his heart hadn’t, to Aaron at least, always seemed completely in it.

“No, only since I was fifteen.”

“Can I ask why?” Aaron regretted the question immediately upon seeing the hesitation on Robert’s face. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business. Religion’s personal, I get it.”

“It’s not so much the religion. It’s more what came before that’s personal. I, um, I’ve never really talked about it that much, not even with Chrissie.”

“It’s fine, Robert, really. I don’t like talking about my past either. Let’s just watch telly or something, yeah?”

“Wait,” Robert said without thinking as Aaron reached for the remote.

“Yeah?”

Robert froze for a second, not at all sure what he was planning to say. It had hit him that this might be his only chance to tell someone the truth, the _whole_ truth. Not even Chrissie knew everything, and she could never find out. It was selfish, he knew, but maybe it would help to tell Aaron. They were friends, weren’t they? Robert wasn’t sure, it wasn’t as if he really had any others. “Actually, do you mind if, um, we do talk about it? My childhood, I mean, and why I joined the church. I don’t know why, but I feel like – like I can trust you.”

“You can, Rob.” That was all it took. Those short words, softly spoken by a man he’d only known for a couple of months but who was fast becoming more important to him than he could ever admit, and the name only he used, were all it took for everything to come pouring out.

 

 

 

 

 

“Me and my dad, we never really got on, to put it mildly. It basically came down to the fact that I wasn’t the kind of son he wanted. All he wanted was for me to take over the farm, get married, have a couple of kids, never complain or argue or dare to have a different opinion to him. And that just wasn’t what I wanted and he couldn’t deal with it. I hated living on the farm. I had all these plans to move away when I was eighteen, go to university, travel, _make_ something of myself. I always fancied going into computer science, reckoned I’d be good at it, or maybe even start my own business. And it shouldn’t have mattered, because my brother Andy was going to take over the farm, and my dad could have just left it at that and got on with things, but no, he had to lord it over me every single day, constantly choosing Andy over me and letting him do whatever he wanted while I got in shit for every little thing. So of course I acted out, because I was a kid and that’s what kids do, but it just made him hate me even more. I could just about deal with it because I had my mum and I loved her _so_ much Aaron, I really did. But then she died when I was fourteen and honestly it’s all a bit of a blur from there, I think I’ve blocked a lot of it out because my dad and Andy hurt me so much. I’m not saying I was perfect, of course I wasn’t, I was messed up and I lashed out all the time, but a lot of that was down to him but I could never have said that to him. He wouldn’t have accepted it. He never accepted me, not really.

He eventually kicked me out when I was fifteen, said he couldn’t do it any more. He couldn’t deal with having a son like me. I had no money and nowhere to go, him and Andy and my sister Victoria were the only family I really knew and I didn’t have any close friends, especially since my mum died and I isolated myself from everyone, so I ended up  hitchhiking to Manchester and living on the streets. It was only for a few weeks but honestly, Aaron, I’d never been so terrified in my life. I was freezing all the time and I barely slept because I didn’t know what people would do to me if I couldn’t defend myself. It was so bad that every night I was tempted to suck it up and try and find a way to get back home, get on my knees and beg my dad to forgive me and spend the rest of my life making myself miserable trying to be his idea of the perfect son. And maybe I would have done if Chrissie hadn’t come along, or maybe I would have got hooked on drugs and eventually died out there.

But like I said, I was only out there a few weeks, cause one day Chrissie was out volunteering with one of her church groups – you know, giving out food and that – and we got talking. She told me I was the youngest person she’d ever met out on the streets and I think it shocked her – she was only seventeen herself – and anyway she ended up insisting that I came back to the church with her. She knew someone there who ran a homeless shelter for young people and said she was sure she could get me in. It turned out they were full but they let me stay for about a month anyway as a favour to Lawrence. I think it took quite a bit of begging from Chrissie but he said I could come and live with them; he probably did it more out of duty, help him prove himself to God or something, but it was still far more than he had to do. It was intense, with them being so religious, and he was distant with me for ages but he was always kind, and I know how lucky I was to find them. Chrissie kissed me the day after I moved in, and we’ve basically been together ever since. It sounds weird, I know, and Lawrence took a while to come around to it, but he still did so much to help me. He sorted me a tutor and arranged it so I could still sit all the same exams I’d been going to, bought me all new clothes, did up a bedroom for me. It went without saying that I’d go to church with them, join them for morning and evening prayers, help out with the volunteering and stuff when I could.

I didn’t grow up religious and I didn’t even know what Mormonism was when I met them, but they took me in and the religion came with it, so no, I haven’t always been Mormon. It’s part of the reason me and Damian don’t get on that well; he thinks he’s better than me because he’s been part of the church since he was a foetus. I think I finally just actually answered your question; sorry for rambling so much. I haven’t talked about any of that stuff in ages.”

Several times while he’d been talking his voice had wavered and he’d looked as if he was about to start crying, but Aaron hadn’t wanted to interrupt, sensing that this was stuff he really needed to get out.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m glad you told me.” He placed a hand over Robert’s as Robert wiped his eyes, tears finally brimming now he had exhausted himself talking. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that. You do know none of it was your fault, don’t you? The stuff with your dad.”

“He made me feel like it was.” Robert spoke quietly, and Aaron noticed him looking down at their hands. Neither of them made any effort to move them.

“It wasn’t. I promise you.” Robert nodded weakly but still didn’t look up. “Robert. Look at me.” He obliged, and Aaron placed his other hand on his shoulder to steady him. “It was _not_ your fault, okay? None of it.”

Aaron pulled him in for a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around him and letting Robert bury his face in his neck. He ran a hand gently through Robert’s soft blond hair, his other hand gripping Robert’s waist. For the first time in a long time – maybe in his life – Robert felt completely safe. Just for a moment it didn’t feel so wrong that the way he felt in Aaron’s arms was a way he never had in Chrissie’s. Just for a moment, nothing else mattered, because Aaron was there, and somehow he made everything better, and reliving everything he had gone through somehow hurt that little bit less.

 _Almost_ everything he had gone through.

He wanted to tell him, he really did. He wanted to find the words to tell him the part of the story he had never told anyone, the part of _himself_ he had never told anyone.

He knew if he didn’t tell him now he never would and it would stay buried forever. He knew that realistically there was nothing to be gained from telling him. He knew he should keep quiet, knew that if Damian somehow found out and it got back to Chrissie and Lawrence then his life would be over. But telling Aaron what he had so far had awakened something in him. Aaron had sat and listened and waited for him to finish at his own pace, hadn’t interrupted or pushed him, hadn’t said anything against Mormonism or the Whites despite Robert being sure he knew what he thought of them. He’d just listened and let Robert speak. Something so simple, but something no-one had ever done for him before. He’d never wanted to go on about Jack too much to Chrissie or Lawrence, it being easier to just act as if he was forgotten and to move on.

Aaron made him feel as if it was okay to talk about it, to remember it, to be struggling to move on.

The way Aaron made him feel scared the hell out of him.

“Aaron?” Robert lifted his head up as he spoke and they finally pulled apart, although remained sitting much closer together than they had been before, their knees just touching. “There’s something else.”

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, they heard the loud beep of the washing machine signifying that the first load was done, and Robert breathed an enormous sigh of relief, as if he had been shaken back into reality. Of course he couldn’t tell Aaron anything else, what the hell had he been thinking? Yes, Aaron had been great – much more than great – while listening to him so far. But maybe that was just the kind of person he was, the kind who listened to people, treated them with respect, empathised with them. That didn’t mean he saw Robert as anything special. It didn’t mean Robert should blurt out to him his biggest secret in the world.

Aaron made no effort to move, still looking at Robert intently.

“Go on,” he said softly.

Robert almost broke, but only almost. He coughed loudly and stood up. “Doesn’t matter. Is it okay to go and put the next load on?”

“Of course.” Aaron tried desperately to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He had no right to be disappointed, he knew that. Robert had already shared so much with him and he was in no way obliged to share anything else, particularly as he had been so open about his father and his childhood while Aaron had told him nothing about his. Part of him wanted to, but he didn’t want to appear as if he was trying to take away from what Robert had told him – because of _course_ he wasn’t, what Robert had been through was horrific – and he was also terrified. He had thought it would have been easier by now, having gone over it so many times throughout the trial as well as individually with everyone he was close with back home, but no matter how many times he relived it, it never got easier, not really. And, while he felt like he knew Robert so much better now, he still couldn’t be sure how he would react.

In all, it would be easier to keep quiet. They had had enough heavy conversation for one day, surely.

Instead, he helped Robert to unload the machine and shove the clothes into the dryer, ignoring his insistence that he could just use the drying rack back in his own flat, and then to load the machine up again – colours this time.

Aaron couldn’t tell whether Robert seemed more or less comfortable following his admission. The conversation flowed steadily, Robert sharing anecdotes about some of the ridiculously pretentious people he had met while interning at Lawrence’s company and Aaron recalling incidents from the bar and from his time at Cain’s garage. He didn’t bring up any of what he had told Aaron before, and Aaron didn’t push. This was good, Aaron thought. Friends talked about both the good and the bad, and he wanted them to be friends. Robert clearly needed a friend, but he would have been lying if he had said he didn’t need Robert’s friendship too.

But while all that suggested Robert was in fact more comfortable now, he was also avoiding looking Aaron in the eye.

As if the looks they had shared before had already said too much, as if there was something between them that neither of them could fully admit to themselves, let alone to each other and definitely not to anybody else, something that they could just about keep under wraps if they focused their eyes anywhere else than on each other’s. Something that they both felt burning up inside them, threatening to explode and destroy everything in their wake if they lost control even for a second.

It had to be something dangerous. They couldn’t let themselves think about the possibility that it could be something good.

And maybe that would have been it, maybe they would have finished the laundry and chatted aimlessly for a bit and then gone about their very separate lives, had Aaron not come back from the bathroom to find Robert sitting in the middle of the floor, his knees up against his chest and his arms wrapped so tightly around them it was as if he would disintegrate if he let go, tears rolling down his cheeks – and Aaron’s heart broke into a thousand fucking pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

“Rob?” Aaron asked quietly, approaching him slowly.

“Sorry,” Robert said, pulling himself up off the floor and quickly wiping his eyes. “Don’t know what came over me.”

“Well, you said you never talk about your dad, so it’s obviously brought a lot of stuff back up for you. And that’s fine, Rob, honestly. It’s a good thing. It’s not good to keep stuff in, no matter how hard it is to talk about it.” He immediately realised the hypocrisy of his words, but he told himself it didn’t matter, not right now. This was about Robert, not him.

“If I tell you something, do you promise to never tell anyone?”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’ve never told anyone before, not even Chrissie. She knows basically the same version as I told you, but, um, there’s something else. The real reason my dad kicked me out. He probably would have ended up doing it anyway – everything I told you was true, about how bad things were between us – but something happened.”

“Do you want to sit down?” Aaron asked, guiding Robert back over towards the sofa as he nodded. “You can trust me,” he prompted, after a brief silence.

“I know. I don’t know why, but I think I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone. And that’s so messed up, because I love Chrissie and I’m marrying her, but it’s like there’s this whole part of me that she doesn’t even know.”

“Maybe it will be easier to tell her once you’ve told me. Maybe you just need to get it out there to someone first.”

“No, she can never know.” Robert sounded adamant, painfully so, so Aaron didn’t push further – although he couldn’t pretend that his desire not to have to talk about Chrissie didn’t also come into it.

“What happened, Robert?”

“The day my dad kicked me out – it wasn’t just some random argument that blew up. Things were always bad between us anyway, as I told you, but he kicked me out because – there was this lad, Patrick, who helped on the farm, and my dad, he caught us, in my room. Kissing. He went absolutely mental, sacked Patrick on the spot and practically threw him out of the house, and then he started on me. He’d smacked me around a bit before, but nothing like this. I was bleeding and he just left me there on the floor in my room. I honestly thought I might die. When I finally got up and tried to sneak downstairs and out of the house, he grabbed me on the stairs and told me to pack my bags and go. Just like that. Victoria and Andy weren’t home and I never saw them again. I have no idea what he told them, but I’m sure he managed to turn me into the villain and himself into the hero, just like he always did.” There was definite bitterness in Robert’s voice, but more than that was the hurt and the _pain_ , the pain of being treated so horrifically by the one person who should have looked after him and loved him no matter what, the kind of pain that Aaron knew better than most.

“I’m so sorry. Fuck, sorry, that sounds so pathetic. Just the thought that he would do that to you – “

“I can’t believe I just told you.”

“I’m glad you did. I mean, not _glad_ , I wish you hadn’t had to go through any of that, but it must have been hurting you so much to keep it to yourself all these years.”

“I just wanted to forget it, but I guess I couldn’t. You don’t forget stuff like that, no matter how much you want to.” He looked at Aaron, not quite sure how to comprehend the way he was looking at him. It wasn’t with pity – Aaron wasn’t like that. It was as if he understood.

“I get you.” _He was the only one who did, and he had no idea how much that terrified Robert, terrified him because of what it ignited within him._ “Obviously I won’t say anything to anyone, but is the reason you can’t tell Chrissie because it’s against your religion? I mean, you being – are you gay?”

“I thought I must have been, at the time. When I was growing up I was told that you could only be gay or straight, and I knew the only one it was acceptable for me to be. So I buried all my crushes on boys, Patrick was the first one anything actually happened with, tried to force myself to believe I was straight I guess. But I did fancy girls too and it confused me so much because I was so convinced I could only like one or the other. So then I thought maybe I was straight after all and I was _so_ relieved when me and Chrissie first got together because I really did like her and didn’t feel like I was faking it.”

“It _is_ okay to like both. I know no-one’s probably ever told you that, but it really is.”

“I know. I think I’ve just about accepted it within myself, that I’m bisexual or whatever.” He paused suddenly, as if shocked by what had just come out of his mouth. “Sorry, I’ve never said it out loud before.”

“I felt the same when I first came out to someone. As if that suddenly made it real. But of course it was always real, just like it was always real for you.”

“I do know that. And maybe if things were different I could be out. But I can’t. It’s up there with one of the worst things in the world you can be in our church. I’d be ex-communicated. I’d lose Chrissie and I’d have nowhere to go. And despite believing that you automatically go to hell if you aren’t straight, Lawrence really has been so good to me. I couldn’t do it to him, just as much as I couldn’t do it to Chrissie.”

“You don’t owe him anything.”

“You don’t know what it’s like, Aaron. And I’m glad you don’t, because some of it’s horrible and I’d hate for you to have to hide who you are. But it’s not all bad. It’s a community, it’s almost a family, and I have a real family with Chrissie. I can’t throw that all away.”

“You deserve to be _happy_ , and you can’t be truly happy if you’re always having to hide. Trust me, I _know_ what it’s like. I only came out two years ago – I was convinced for so long that I would never tell anyone, that I’d push it so far down it would eventually go away, but it got to a point where I just couldn’t do it any more. It was destroying me.”

“I know it sounds pathetic, and I know you don’t agree with the church, but I _can’t_ tell them. They might not know everything about me, but other than my mum they’re the only people who have ever cared about me and I _can’t_ lose that – “

“They’re not the only ones who care about you.”

“What?”

Aaron swallowed, forcing himself to look directly at Robert because he knew he would have to be honest with him if he did. “ _I_ care about you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” He felt himself breathe the word rather than say it, and before he could register what he was doing he was stroking Robert’s cheek with his thumb and leaning in and their lips were meeting in the briefest and lightest of touches – and then Robert was blushing hard and pulling away and standing up and telling Aaron he was sorry but he couldn’t do this, and then he was walking away and out of the door and Aaron was left feeling like the worst person in the world.

It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, though, before Aaron was answering a knock at the door and Robert was there, and then Robert was closing the door behind them once again and kissing Aaron for all he was worth, and his hands were resting on the back of Aaron’s neck and he’d never felt so close to another person in his entire life.

Nothing had ever felt so _right_ in his entire life.

For as long as he could remember, he’d been told that this was wrong; he’d had it drilled into him by his father and later by his church and on some level simply by the world around him that men did not kiss other men.

But he knew in that moment that this was _right_ , and suddenly nothing else in the world mattered to him other than the feeling of Aaron’s lips on his.

He knew that he could fall in love with Aaron, he really could.

 

 

 

 

 

After a few minutes, Aaron reluctantly pulled away from the kiss, unsure of how far Robert would want to take things. He wanted him, _God he wanted him_ , but he was very conscious of the fact that Robert had not long ago been crying his eyes out to him. No matter how much he wanted him, he could never take advantage.

“That was unexpected,” he said, practically breathing the words into Robert’s mouth as their faces were still so close, their foreheads now touching.

“I’ve wanted to do that since I first met ya,” Robert said, unable to keep himself from grinning.

“Me too.” He felt himself smiling back at Robert, the other man’s grin infectious.

Robert was the first to properly pull away, looking nervous as he started talking quickly, almost stammering as he tried to get out the words that he wasn’t quite sure how to say. “I, um, it’s not that I don’t want to carry this on, I _really_ do, but I’ve never – with a guy before. You know.”

“It’s okay, Rob.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, _ever_ , okay? And I was fucking terrified my first time. I know what it’s like. And you’ve had a rough day, going over all that stuff with your dad.”

“I do want to. Just – ”

“Not right now?”

Robert nodded in response.

“Rob, listen to me. I like you, okay? I really like you.” Aaron could hear the words coming out of his mouth before he had actually registered thinking them. He was _never_ like this, ever. He hated talking about his feelings and letting himself get close to people and allowing himself to be vulnerable. But somehow, the mere thought of Robert thinking badly about himself was enough to throw those fears out of the window. “I want you, and if that’s what you want then I’m not going anywhere. But I’m not going to be a dick about it. I know things are hard for you and I know you’re engaged. More than anything, I want us to be friends. I want you to be able to talk to me, and I don’t want things to be weird between us, so if you want me to back off, I will.”

“I – I want this, too. Me and Chrissie – we’re not right for each other. I did think I was in love with her once, but I was only fifteen when I met her, of course I thought I was in love. Then obviously I was already living with her and her dad, so it got serious really fast and she was planning our whole life together. A couple of years ago she started dropping all these incredibly non-subtle hints about us getting married and so I proposed and that was that, the rest of our lives all sorted. And I didn’t know how I felt about it because part of me really did want to marry her. It’s like, I don’t really know how to describe it – I do love her, but I feel like it’s not in the way I’m supposed to love her. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it’s how I feel.”

“You’ve got a lot going on, and I’m not gonna push you, okay?” Aaron was trying hard to be sensible, to be a good guy, knowing that what Robert needed more than anything was a friend despite how much more he wanted to be to him.

“Okay.”

“So let’s finish the laundry, yeah? I wouldn’t want to be in your position if Damian gets back to half his clothes not done. Then I can come round and help you with the rest of the stuff he’s left you to do.”

Robert had known Aaron was a decent person – much more than decent – but he was still somewhat astounded by how _nice_ Aaron was being to him following what had just happened between them, as if he was genuinely okay with leaving it with a kiss and waiting for Robert to find the words to tell him what he wanted. “You don’t have to do that,” he finally said.

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I’m gone well before Damian’s due back.”

 

 

 

 

 

Robert didn’t see Aaron over the next few mornings. He reasoned that maybe he was tired and didn’t fancy the gym, or had been out late with Adam and was now dead to the world, or just didn’t want to risk doing anything to rouse any suspicion in Damian. He didn’t want to think about the possibility that he was simply avoiding him, that he had decided Robert was more trouble than he was worth and that he was going to end whatever this was between them before it had even really begun.

It was about a week later that he did see him, and it wasn’t by chance. He had decided that he needed to find out what was going on, and the only way he was going to do that was to speak to Aaron properly. Damian was out speaking to some Mormon youth group for the evening, and had offered an invitation Robert really should have accepted because he knew how it would make him look, but he had managed to convince Damian that he needed some time for some private personal Bible study.

There was no answer when he knocked on Aaron’s door. Part of him was relieved, as he had no idea how he would have explained himself had Adam answered. But the relief was nowhere near strong enough to convince him not to do this; the desire to simply s _ee_ Aaron was far stronger than anything else he was feeling, and far stronger than it should have been.

As he left the building, Robert told himself he was just going for a walk to clear his head. Told himself that it was just by chance that he ended up outside the bar where Aaron worked. He hesitated as he peered inside, telling himself he was being ridiculous, it was fine to go _into_ a bar; it wasn’t as if he would be drinking. Besides, what he wanted to do with Aaron was most definitely a far greater sin.

Aaron saw him first. He was coming out of the back to bring some glasses to the bar when he glanced out of the window straight ahead and saw what he was sure was the side profile of the man he hadn’t been able to get out of his head for more than a few minutes since what had happened the previous weekend. He gulped hard and waited a few moments to see if Robert would make a move, but he remained frozen in the same spot. Aaron told Angie, his manager, that he was nipping out for a couple of minutes, and didn’t give himself the chance to think about what he was going to say to Robert before he was standing right in front of him.

“Hey,” Aaron said.

Robert jumped slightly, having been too lost in his own thoughts to notice that the subject of those thoughts was stood before him.

“Hey. Sorry, I didn’t see you come out. I – I wanted to come and see you, but then when I got here I thought maybe it was a bad idea. I didn’t know if you’d want to see me.”

“Of course I want to see you,” Aaron said, his voice softening as he smiled at the other man. “I’ve been wanting to see you all week, but I thought it was best to give you some space. I didn’t want to push you, and I know what I said but it’s probably for the best that nothing else happens. I’m not worth risking everything you have.”

“I think you are.” A couple of months ago, a life with the Whites had been all he thought he wanted. Now, he couldn’t imagine anything that didn’t include Aaron – however much he knew it couldn’t really happen, not long-term, not anything _real._ He didn’t care quite enough about what he could lose, though. Right now, he just wanted Aaron.

“Are you sure?” Aaron asked, somewhat hesitantly, although he stepped closer to Robert nonetheless. Robert nodded, and suddenly Aaron was taking him by the hand and pulling him down the street, turning into an alleyway and dragging him along until they reached the area behind the bar and Aaron was sure they were out of sight.

Then he pushed Robert up against the hard stone wall and kissed him like his life depended on it. He wrapped his arms around Robert’s neck, and Robert’s gripped his waist, pulling him even closer. Aaron deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into Robert’s mouth, an action which Robert returned, and for a few minutes they were completely lost in each other, unable to pull apart for fear that they might not actually be able to breathe if they did.

It was Aaron who eventually pulled away, lightly stroking the side of Robert’s neck as he did so, Robert simply staring at him as though he was still in shock, and then finally smiling.

“I’m glad you came,” Aaron said, still touching him and not moving away, desperate not to break the moment as as much as he knew they both wanted it to, he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that this would definitely happen again.

“Me too.”

“I’ve been thinking – I’m busy with work the next few days, but I’m off on Wednesday and – only if you want to, of course, but Adam’s not going to be here and I thought maybe you could come over. I don’t know how set in stone your mission stuff you have to do in the week is, but I did have an idea of how to get Damian away for the day if there isn’t other stuff you have to do.”

“Go on,” Robert said, a thrill racing through him at the thought of a whole uninterrupted day with Aaron. He was pretty sure he would say anything to Damian in order to make that happen.

“There’s this woman I know back home, Emma, and she’s kind of a religious nut. There’s always been something a bit odd about her, and then ever since her husband James – who’s technically Adam’s dad, but that’s a long story, and then he was with my mum for a bit as well, which isn’t really relevant either and I don’t know why I’m telling you, I’ll get back to the actual point – so James died last year and I think all the religious stuff really started then. I can’t say I know that much about all the different kinds of Christianity but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be that hard to get her to consider Mormonism, and once you get her started on God she doesn’t really stop so she could easily have Damian there all day if he went to talk to her. I thought maybe you could suggest he went to see her and tell him you’ll stay and do what you usually do, then you could, you know, come over.” Aaron paused for a second, aware he’d been talking fast in an effort not to chicken out, hoping Robert had been following. “Only if you want to, though. It was just an idea.”

“No, it’s great. I reckon there’s a good chance he’ll buy it. Not many people we meet are that keen, so he’ll probably be relieved to talk to her. She sounds equally as mad as him.”

“She has got a gay son, so maybe tell him to not go on about that bit too much, but honestly, once you get her going on religion she doesn’t really care about much else. If he gets her on one about God first I don’t think it’ll be an issue.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”

Aaron blushed, hoping that the dark night concealed it at least a little. “I guess I just really wanted to see you.”

“Me too,” Robert said softly, pulling Aaron in for another kiss.

 

 

 

 

 

“I still don’t get why Aaron’s helping us out,” Damian said, straightening up his jacket as he prepared to leave for his trip to Emmerdale. “Or why you even talk to him at all, if I’m being honest. You’re not doing some kind of duty by being nice to him. He’s not the kind of person you want as a friend, Robert.”

“Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to have a conversation with the guy,” Robert snapped back, before realising that he really shouldn’t show any kind of emotion about the situation, not to Damian. It took everything he had to start speaking more calmly and with slight disinterest, as if he wasn’t bothered about Aaron at all, and just hoped that Damian would buy it. “He’s just doing us a favour. He might not be religious himself, but he knows this woman who is and he’s trying to help. Stop reading too much into things.”

“Okay, it was decent of him, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to start acting like his best friend. And neither should you.”

“I won’t. Of course I won’t.” Robert turned to the next page of the Bible he’d been pretending to read while waiting for Damian to leave, hoping he would leave him alone if he thought he was getting on with some study before heading out for the day’s missionary work. “See you tonight.”

“I’m still not sure I trust Aaron’s word that there’s any hope with this woman. Going out to this village better be worth it, is all I’m saying.”

 _Oh, it’ll be worth it._ Robert was sure of it.

 

 

 

 

 

Almost as soon as Robert was through the door, Aaron was kissing him hard, guiding him towards the kitchen counter which Robert was more than happy to be pushed up against as Aaron positioned himself in the space between his legs and worked his tongue into his mouth. Robert couldn’t help the moan that escaped his mouth as he felt Aaron hardening against him; his hands found Aaron’s arse and he pulled him in even closer until there was almost no space between them. Robert had never felt like this before in his life, had never just wanted to stay in one moment forever. He felt like he could kiss Aaron forever, until they could no longer breathe, no longer think straight, no longer tell where one of them ended and the other began.

Aaron began kissing Robert’s neck, giving Robert the opportunity to whisper to him what he knew Aaron wanted but wouldn’t want to ask because he didn’t want to push Robert. Robert had no idea how he had got so lucky as to have found someone who not only wanted him but also cared so much about what _he_ wanted.

“Do you want to take this to the bedroom?” He spoke in a low voice, directly into Aaron’s ear.

“You sure?” Aaron asked, looking up at him intently.

“Yeah. I want this. I want _you_.”

Aaron simply grinned and took him by the hand, leading him towards his bedroom, where he drew him in for a deep, intoxicating kiss as they stumbled towards the bed, hastily removing each other’s clothes, although when Robert gripped the hem of Aaron’s t-shirt he mumbled something about preferring to keep it on. Robert nodded and for a moment just lay on the bed and simply stared at the man above him, pretty certain he had never seen a more beautiful sight in his life.

And then Aaron was on top of him and touching him in all the right places and whispering that he was going to make it so good for him.

“How do you want this?” Aaron asked, slightly breathlessly, in between planting kisses across Robert’s chest.

“I want – I want you inside me.”

Aaron stopped what he was doing, looking up and meeting Robert’s eyes instead, trying to gauge how he was really feeling. “We don’t have to, Rob. We can do other stuff, it’s fine.”

“I _want_ to, Aaron.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Robert confirmed. He didn’t think he’d ever been more certain in his life. He didn’t know what it was but Aaron ignited something in him that drowned out his father’s voice in his head telling him he was sick and wrong, something that rendered every reason not to do this – his fiancée waiting for him, her father whom he owed everything he had to, the church that had welcomed him with (almost) open arms but would not hesitate to turn its back on him in an instant – meaningless.

All that mattered to him right then was Aaron.

“I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

“I know you will.”

“And if you want me to stop, just say so, okay?”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. Now come on, show me what I’ve been missing out on.”

 

 

 

 

 

Robert groaned as his five am alarm went off, rolling over and pressing a kiss to Aaron’s shoulder before pulling himself up out of bed.

“Sorry,” he murmured as Aaron half-opened his eyes and tried to reach out towards him. Robert couldn’t resist grasping his hand and holding it tightly, just for a second.

“It’s okay,” Aaron said sleepily, sitting up a little as he watched Robert put on the pyjamas he had been changing into early every morning for the previous few days before heading back to his own flat. Damian wasn’t usually up until at least six, but he couldn’t risk it. “You coming over again tonight?”

“Try stopping me.” He leant down and placed a lingering kiss on Aaron’s lips. “Get some sleep, yeah?” He felt bad, knowing Aaron had spent the last few days running on only a couple of hours of sleep as he always waited until gone midnight to come over to be sure Damian was asleep, and then of course once they were together there were things they wanted to do much more than sleep.

“See you later,” Aaron said as he got back under the covers, turning onto his side. Robert kissed him lightly on the forehead before opening the bedroom door as quietly as possible and creeping across the flat.

“I fucking knew it.”

The voice came seemingly out of nowhere, shocking Robert so much he almost jumped out of his skin, although he did then notice that a lamp was switched on, revealing Adam sitting on the sofa in just his boxers, looking so pleased with himself it was as if he’d solved the mystery of the Bermuda triangle.

“I – um – ”

“Relax, Robert. It’s not as if it wasn’t obvious that you two were into each other. I just can’t believe Aaron didn’t tell me.”

“Blame me for that, not him. I’m the one who can’t risk anyone knowing about us.”

“Not planning on leaving your bird, then?”

“I can’t, I – ”

“Then why not just leave him alone? He deserves better than this. I can’t sit back and watch him get messed around.”

“You were acting like you were fine with us a minute ago.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the middle of the night, I’m tired. I didn’t exactly think through the fact that you’re a Mormon. There’s more to life than going to church and pretending you’re straight, you know.”

“I’m not messing Aaron around. He knows the situation.”

“You know, I didn’t think you were that bad. I actually felt a bit sorry for you, stuck with that awful flatmate of yours. But even if you’re not as outwardly horrible as him, you’re no better. You still only care about yourself.”

“Believe what you want, but I do care about him. It’s just – things are complicated, so can you _please_ not say anything to anyone? Please, Adam. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

Before Adam could respond, they were both startled by the sound of footsteps coming through the hall.

“What the hell’s going on?” Aaron asked once had appeared in front of them, stifling a yawn as he spoke.

“I was just telling lover boy here that it’s probably for the best that he leaves you alone from now on,” Adam said, his voice steady, although he then glared at Robert.

“Oh, come on, Ad, don’t be like that,” Aaron said.

“I’m not being like anything, mate, just looking out for you.”

“I know, and I appreciate it, but you really don’t need to.”

Robert stood up, debating whether touching Aaron would make things worse but then realising Adam didn’t like him anyway – and besides, he couldn’t bear not to. He placed a hand on Aaron’s arm, gently stroking it with his thumb. “I’d better go,” he said quietly.

“It’ll be fine. Adam won’t say anything.” Aaron turned to face Adam, who was still sitting down. “Will you?”

“Of course I won’t. But for your sake, not his.”

And with that, Robert left.

 

 

 

 

 

“Can I ask you something?”

It was nearing four in the morning, both of them having decided following two incredible rounds of sex that there was now little point going to sleep.

Sex with Aaron was pretty much the best thing Robert had ever experienced in his life, and he certainly had no complaints. There was one thing, however, that had been – well, not _bothering_ him exactly, but that he was more curious about. In the month or so that they’d been spending almost every night together, Aaron hadn’t taken his shirt off once. Initially Robert had assumed it was some kind of shyness thing, but that was becoming difficult to believe – Aaron was far from shy in every other way, encouraging Robert to try things he’d never even _heard_ of (and which always made him feel far too good to feel at all embarrassed or ashamed about just how much he liked them, even though he’d always believed he _should_ feel those things, should be filled with shame and disgust and _wrong_ ).

Robert didn’t want to push Aaron, he really didn’t, which is why he had held off saying anything about it. But he also wanted to _know_ Aaron, really know him. He didn’t want this to just be a sex thing, and he was pretty sure Aaron’s keenness to keep his shirt on didn’t really have anything to do with sex.

“Sure.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but, um – why do you always keep your shirt on?”

Aaron was lying pressed into Robert’s side, and Robert felt him tense up.

Aaron wanted to tell him. He didn’t trust many people, and yet somehow he trusted Robert. He was sure Robert wouldn’t judge him, or say he was disgusting. But he couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t change things. He didn’t want Robert to be afraid to touch him, to worry that he was fragile and messed up and could fall apart at any moment. Robert had enough of his own shit to deal with without him adding his own problems.

“I – ”

“Forget it. Seriously, forget I asked,” Robert said quickly, not able to bear the fact that he had made Aaron uncomfortable.

“No, you’ve been open with me, and I want to be too, it’s just, um – just promise me that we don’t have to make it a big thing and talk about it all the time, and it won’t change anything between us?”

“Aaron, nothing could change the way I feel about you.” They hadn’t talked about their feelings a lot, not since Aaron had told him he liked him after they had first kissed, both instead choosing to skirt around it, to act as if they didn’t need anything more than they had now, as if it wasn’t killing them both that Robert would soon be leaving Leeds and spending the rest of his life with a woman he wasn’t in love with.

Instead of talking about his feelings, though, Aaron knew that now was the time to do what he’d avoided as much as possible since the trial – talk about Gordon.

He took a breath before speaking. “I’ve got scars,” he said finally. “Like – a lot of them, and they’re bad. I don’t like people seeing them.”

“Can I – can I ask what happened?”

“Nothing.” Aaron paused and looked away from Robert. “I did it to myself. I was going through – some stuff, and I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I used to cut myself. Stupid, I know.”

“Hey, of course it’s not stupid.” Robert held his arms out towards Aaron, his heart already breaking in fucking two at the thought of Aaron going through _anything_ that had made him feel that way. “Can I?” Aaron nodded, and Robert wrapped his arms around him, pressing a light kiss to his forehead as he did so. “You’re beautiful, Aaron. _So_ fucking beautiful. I can’t believe how lucky I am. And your scars don’t change that, okay? Not one bit. You don’t have to show me, but I _know_ they don’t. I think you’re just about the best person I’ve ever known.”

“Shut up,” Aaron said weakly, a few tears rolling down his cheeks. He wiped them as he sat up.

“Never.” Robert sat up too and grinned slightly despite everything, confirming what he had really already known – that Aaron was the person who could both break his heart and keep it whole.

Aaron placed his hand loosely over Robert’s, interlinking their fingers. “I know I’ve never really talked about him, but I lived with my dad for a lot of my childhood. My mum left me with him when I was a kid, and I stayed there until I was sixteen. He always had a temper, he’d scream at me over the smallest things and he smacked me a few times, and then he – he raped me.”

He saw the colour drain from Robert’s face. Robert desperately wanted to reassure him that it hadn’t been his fault _at all_ , but he could tell Aaron needed him to let him speak, let him finish. He remembered how much it had meant to him when Aaron had sat and listened to him talk about Jack, and suddenly, no matter how much it hurt him hearing what Aaron had been through, it wasn’t at all hard to do the same.

“After each time he did it, he’d go back to just shouting at me over everything for a while, and I’d start to think he wasn’t going to do it again. But then he would, and it was always worse than the last time. When I was sixteen I finally tried to fight back and confront him over it, but I ended up hitting my stepmum Sandra instead and he threw me out. I went to my mum’s – even though part of me hated her for leaving me with him, I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I knew she didn’t know the truth about him. It was then that I started cutting myself. It sounds mad, I know – I didn’t do it when I was actually with him, but when I finally got away I couldn’t seem to help it. It was like I now had all this time to just sit around and _think_ about it and it drove me mad. I guess hurting myself was the only way to stop myself thinking about it, something to hurt like hell but not as much as constantly reliving it hurt.”

“Aaron – I’m _so_ sorry, Aaron. I’m so sorry for what he did to you. I’m sorry for going on about my dad when you went through all that – “

“Don’t. We’ve both been through awful stuff, okay?”

Robert nodded. “Do you still – ”

Aaron knew what he was trying to ask. “No. Not since before I moved here. And I haven’t felt the urge to, either, not any more. He’s still there in my head, but not like he used to be. And he’s in prison now, he was sentenced not long before I came here, and he got eighteen years so I don’t have to worry about seeing him again. I got back in touch with Sandra and Liv during the trial; luckily she’d left him and they were safe, and now they live not far from my mum, so I can see Liv whenever I go back home and she’s going to come and stay with me here soon too.”

“I’m glad you’ve got her. I miss Victoria so much sometimes.”

“Maybe you could try and find her.”

“Maybe.” Maybe not. He could never go home, and besides, his dad was bound to have poisoned his sister’s mind against him. It had been eight years without a word, after all. “I wish I could have been there for you during the trial. It must have been so tough for you.”

“You would have been amazing. But I had Adam and my family, especially my mum and Cain and my auntie Lisa, and they really helped me through it.”

“I’m so proud of you, Aaron. I wish I could be more like you, you know. Do the right thing, no matter how hard it is.”

“Maybe you will, one day.”

Leaving Aaron in bed was never easy, but it had never been harder than that morning. Sneaking back into his flat and sitting on the hard floor of his living room, his unopened Bible in front of him, he knew he had never felt like this about anyone before.

He knew that Aaron was it for him.

He knew that he could never have him, not truly, not properly.

It felt like a knife through his chest.

It was a pain he knew he would have to live with for the rest of his life.

 

 

 

 

 

“Do you actually believe in God?”

It was the following night, and they had spent the last ten minutes or so lying in comfortable silence, neither wanting to fall asleep, Robert every so often tracing Aaron’s scars with his fingers. He’d told Aaron over and over that he was beautiful, and strong, and kind, and grumpy but hilarious, and fantastic in bed, and that he didn’t see him any differently. He knew it could take a lifetime, but could only hope that he would one day be able to believe it.

He wished it could be a lifetime that they could spend together.

“Honestly? I don’t know. I never really thought about it much before I met Chrissie. I wouldn’t say I ever really believed, but I didn’t _not_ believe either, and I guess that’s still really where I’m at. I don’t agree with a lot of what my church says, or what any organised religion says really, but I think a part of me at least wants to believe. I suppose it kind of helps to think that there’s a point to all this, some kind of plan.”

“I’ve always said I don’t really believe, but I did used to pray sometimes when I was younger – when things were really bad with my dad. I used to ask God not to let him hurt me anymore. But it never worked and I think eventually any part of me that did believe died.”

“I’m sorry,” Robert said quietly. “I didn’t mean that what happened to you was part of God’s plan or something. There’s no justification for it whatsoever and I don’t believe that. I meant more that when I’m having a really bad time it’s sort of a comfort to think that there is a God because then I’m not alone and maybe it will be okay in the end.”

“I get what you’re saying, but isn’t that maybe just a way of avoiding taking responsibility? I’m not having a go at you, I’m really not; you can’t help what you believe. But you can spend your whole life trying to do what you’ve been told is the right thing in the hope that maybe there really is a heaven, or you can do what makes you happy and what _you_ think is right and there’s still just as much chance of there being a heaven, but at least you’ve lived a good life.”

“When did you get so philosophical?” Robert teased, trying to force a laugh but really just wanting to cry. Robert Sugden liked to be right, and hated that Aaron was right, hated it because he knew just how right he was.

“Around the time I let the Mormon across the hall use my washing machine,” Aaron said, earning a genuine smile from Robert that time.

“I bet that was your big plan to get me into bed.”

“Yeah, Rob, I snuck over while you were out and broke your washing machine just so you’d come over and drink all my juice and I’d eventually have the joy of you kicking me in your sleep.”

“Let’s not go to sleep then.” Robert leant over and kissed Aaron, gently at first and then deepening it as Aaron’s hands found his hips and gripped them hard, Robert then settling between Aaron’s legs and wishing he never had to be anywhere else.

 

 

 

 

 

Logically, Robert knew that it couldn’t last _(maybe nothing good ever did)_ but he was so wrapped up in just how good, how fucking _amazing_ , being with Aaron was that when it did all come crashing down, it seemed to come out of nowhere.

For more than a month he had spent most of his nights in Aaron’s bed, and mostly he was the happiest he’d ever been. But he could never completely shut out the fact that each day that passed was a day closer to him having to leave. Sometimes when he was lying in Aaron’s arms he could just about forget, could go for hours without Chrissie and Lawrence and the church crossing his mind. But the days were bad, long painful days spent with an even more insufferable Damian now that he had started counting down to the end of their mission and to their respective weddings, Damian set to marry his fiancé Ursula two weekends before Robert and Chrissie’s big day, both of them each other’s reluctant best men.

So maybe it all got a bit much for Robert, and maybe he let his guard down too much in his desperation to spend every minute with Aaron that he physically could before it had to be over.

Or maybe he was just a fucking idiot who was greedy and selfish and wanted what he knew he couldn’t, _shouldn’t_ , have, and it was entirely his fault that things happened the way they did.

It was a Thursday night, Robert and Damian walking home after a seemingly endless day of rejection after rejection from every single person they had tried to talk to. Robert fought the urge to glance through the window of Aaron’s work as they walked past, although he couldn’t help checking his watch and noticing that it had gone nine-thirty. Knowing Aaron was finishing at ten, he quickly formulated a plan, trying not to think about how weak his excuse was going to sound. He couldn’t bring himself to care too much – all that mattered was seeing Aaron.

It didn’t matter that he would have been seeing Aaron in just a few hours anyway; once he had the words he needed to say to Damian to make it happen just that little bit sooner, he physically couldn’t stop them from coming out.

“I think I’m gonna walk around for a bit longer,” he told Damian as they neared their building. “It’s been a pretty intense day, and I need some time to think.”

“Can’t you just do that in your room? I won’t disturb you.” Damian turned to look at him, a slightly baffled expression on his face.

Robert should have realised then that Damian really wasn’t as thick as he had sometimes thought, and that this was a bad and pointless idea, and that he should just _wait_.

He wasn’t thinking clearly though, not in the slightest, not at all. He realised he hadn’t for a while, not since Aaron had come crashing into his life and had lodged himself firmly in his heart and his lungs and every corner of his mind.

“I just feel like I need it. Properly clear my head, you know. I won’t be long, I promise. I’ll be back for prayers before bed.”

“Sometimes I really don’t get you, Sugden. But alright. Guess I’ll see you later, then.”

“See you later.”

Robert walked in the opposite direction to the bar for a good five minutes until he was sure Damian would be safely back in their flat, and then turned around, arriving outside the bar at around ten to.

He’d never been inside, and what was ten minutes anyway, _surely_ waiting shouldn’t have been a problem, but before he knew what he was doing he was sitting at the bar and asking the forty-odd, very attractive but terrifying looking woman with bright purple hair, two nose rings, an eyebrow piercing and a neck tattoo – Angie? – if Aaron was around. Apparently he was in the back sorting out some stock before he finished, and if Robert wasn’t going to buy a drink then he wasn’t entitled to ask any more questions.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and he must have looked even more pathetic than he felt because Angie’s face softened and she snapped at the customer badgering her for a pint to _fucking wait, Clive, or I’ll tell your wife where you really were the other night_.

“It’s alright, love,” she said to Robert, ignoring Clive’s threats. “You the boyfriend?”

“No,” Robert said, after slightly too long a pause. Well, it was the truth wasn’t it? Aaron’s boyfriend was something he could never be. “Just a mate.”

“Heard that one before, babe. What’s the problem, you not out or something?”

“It’s not like that. We’re friends, that’s all.”

“Well, if the look on his face almost every single fucking day lately is anything to go by, he’s obviously getting some from somewhere. And if it’s not you, you obviously want it to be, so if I were you I’d sort your shit out and get on with it. Don’t tell him I said this, can’t have him think I’m soft, but Aaron’s one of the good ones. He deserves someone to treat him right.”

All Robert could do was nod dumbly, Angie then moving on to shove Clive’s pint in front of them and then ask a group of girls who couldn’t have been more than fifteen if she looked like she was born yesterday.

He couldn’t believe Angie had sussed him out so instantly. He’d never thought he was the type of guy to wear his heart on his sleeve.

Maybe he never was, before Aaron.

Twenty minutes later, and Robert had his back pressed against Aaron’s kitchen counter, the younger man’s tongue deep in his throat and strong hands fumbling with his belt buckle, the top few buttons of Robert’s shirt already undone, and given a bit more time Robert was pretty confident they would have ended up fucking right there.

He’d known from the start that this thing with Aaron was dangerous. Aaron didn’t just make him lose his mind, but completely took it over, rendering Robert entirely unable to think about anything other than the man in front of him.

And maybe Aaron felt the same, because neither of them had noticed that the door had been left on the latch, and neither of them heard it open, and remained kissing each other like they didn’t know how to do anything else until somebody cleared their throat loudly behind them.

Damian.

Robert looked at his roommate, his mouth open in shock and his eyes like daggers, and in that moment he knew that it was all over.

 

 

 

 

 

“For future reference, _mate_ , you can’t tell me you’re going on an uncharacteristic late night walk and not expect me to get suspicious and wait in the lobby for you, and when I see you with the neighbour you pretend to be merely acquainted with I’m obviously going to follow you.” He paused, clearly enjoying this, and actually _laughed_. The utter _bastard_. “Not that it really matters any more, I suppose. Once Lawrence and your darling Chrissie find out about this, you’ll be finished. I would say it’s been nice knowing you, but really it’s been average at best.”

“You can’t tell them. _Please_ , Damian. I’m begging you.” Robert had immediately unhooked himself from Aaron’s grip, and had forced himself to walk over and stand face-to-face with the man who now possessed the power to ruin his life. “This was a mistake, a _huge_ mistake.” If Aaron hadn’t been behind him, he didn’t think he would have been able to say it, not if it had meant looking into his eyes and seeing even a flash of hurt, because while it had undeniably been a mistake it had also been the best thing that had ever happened to him. _Aaron_ was the best thing that had ever happened to him. “I know that, but it will _never_ happen again, I promise. I love Chrissie, you know I do. _Please_ don’t tell them.”

“You know I don’t have a choice. It’s a sin, and you must pay for it.”

“Fuck you and your fucking sins,” Aaron shouted, storming over to the pair of them, forcing Robert to look at him. “Tell him, Rob. Tell him you don’t really love her. Tell him you want to be with _me_. Who cares if your church kicks you out? You don’t feel like you really belong there anyway. You belong here, with me. And you can have that, we can have all of it. You can be _happy_. Just tell him.”

“I’m sorry, Aaron.”

Robert forced himself to look into Aaron’s eyes one more time, and then followed Damian out of the flat, his flatmate talking at a million miles an hour about how Robert had ruined everything and it was all entirely his own fault _(as if Robert didn’t already know that, as if he didn’t hate himself far more than anybody else ever could)_ , and how he was going to pay for it.

He knew Damian would call Lawrence no matter what, so he told him he didn’t have to listen to him anymore. He left him seething and locked his bedroom door, and then lay down on the hard wooden floor by his bed and cried all night.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert thought he’d have a few days, but when he surfaced the next morning following no more than an hour of broken sleep, Damian chirpily informed him that Lawrence was on his way. He was loving this. He’d always seen himself as far superior to Robert, but now he could prove it, secure his position as golden boy. It struck Robert for the first time just how much Damian reminded him of Andy.

He wanted to escape, but he was _tired_ , and it was pointless, and it would all catch up with him anyway, and he had nowhere to go – it wasn’t as if he could go and see Aaron.

He spent the next couple of hours or so until Lawrence turned up, Chrissie and Damian’s father Norman in tow, in silence, not rising to anything Damian said to him because it was already too late.

As Lawrence harped on about how disappointed and ashamed he was and how ex-communication procedures would be soon to begin and how he hoped Robert knew that he had thrown everything good he had away for absolutely nothing, Robert felt like he was fifteen again, hearing similar things from his father before being beaten into the ground.

Somehow, it hurt even more now. Maybe it was because when Jack had thrown him out, he’d lost a father who had never truly cared about him, but now he was losing _Aaron_ , who he knew in his heart genuinely did. He’d tried to warn Aaron from the beginning, but he hadn’t tried hard enough, because he hadn’t been able to stay away from him and now he had hurt the one person who deserved it less than anybody in the entire world, who had already been through enough hurt to more than last a lifetime. He should never have tried to pretend that things would be okay.

Lawrence had been bellowing at him for so long that he’d stopped listening, but his ears pricked up upon hearing one of the last things he would have expected to come out of his (ex?)-father-in-law’s mouth. “I want to meet this Aaron.”

 

 

 

 

 

Robert desperately tried to put him off, to convince him that this was all his fault and not Aaron’s, and that he’d learnt his lesson and just wanted to _go_ and face up to what he’d done. But Lawrence White didn’t take no for an answer, and it was just his luck that it was Aaron’s day off and he was home alone while Adam worked, the perfect target for the rage that was too powerful to be satisfied with hurling it at Robert.

Aaron came to the door in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt and he’d never looked more beautiful, and Robert immediately hated himself for thinking that because his eyes were red-rimmed where he’d clearly been crying.

“I’m not in the mood for this,” Aaron said bluntly, attempting to shut the door in their faces, but Lawrence barged in and they all followed, Robert mouthing ‘sorry’ at Aaron despite his resolve not to let Lawrence see him show any kind of weakness around the man.

That would quickly come crashing down, too.

“Well, I wasn’t in the mood to receive a call at seven o’clock this morning informing me that my soon-to-be son-in-law has been carrying on with a _man_ behind my daughter’s back, but sometimes we just have to deal with things regardless of whether we’re in the mood for them.”

“I’m not going to apologise, if that’s what you’re hoping for. Not to you, anyway.” He turned to Chrissie. “I _am_ sorry for hurting you. But you must have known that Robert wasn’t really in it, not completely.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He was _fine_ before he came here. You’ve obviously corrupted him.” She spoke defiantly, hiding any traces of the fact that she had been crying when they had arrived and had tearfully asked Robert how he could have done this to her, the woman who had given him _everything_.

“He didn’t do anything he didn’t want to,” Aaron snapped back.

“Well, I hope you’re glad you ruined his life,” Lawrence chimed in, taking the lead again, Chrissie sliding into the background again. “Though that was probably your plan all along, wasn’t it? See how far you can push the Mormon boy, force him to partake in your sickening lifestyle? You’ve probably been having a good laugh about him behind his back.”

“It wasn’t ever like that. You don’t know anything about me, and how dare you call _me_ sickening when I know what your precious church does to people like me.”

“Let’s just go,” Norman said, stepping forward and trying to pull Lawrence back.

“No, I’m not done.” Lawrence shoved his brother-in-law away. “Robert, come here.” Robert reluctantly moved so he was standing beside him, and looked down at the floor, anywhere but at Aaron, before Lawrence yanked his chin up. “I can’t _believe_ you’ve done this. This was the perfect arrangement, so _easy_ for you. Missions are usually two years and you couldn’t even last six months without jumping into bed with the first guy who showed the slightest bit of interest. He isn’t even anything _special_.”

“Yes he is,” Robert said immediately, before he could stop himself. “Whatever you might think, I wouldn’t have cheated on Chrissie with just anyone. I really do care about her. But I’m not in love with her, Lawrence. I’m in love with Aaron.” The words were out of his mouth before he had even considered them in his brain, and it was the worst thing he could have said but he couldn’t take it back.

“You are?” Aaron’s voice was little more than a whisper, and as cheesy as he knew it was, for a moment Robert really did feel as if there was nobody else in the room, as if they were protected by their own little bubble of _Robert and Aaron_.

“This is hardly how I wanted to tell you. I’m sorry. But I mean it; I love you. I’m in love with you.”

“I love you too.” Robert felt his heart skip about three beats – _Aaron loves me Aaron loves me Aaron loves me_ – but then the bubble burst, as bubbles always do.

“As _heart-warming_ as this is,” Lawrence snarled, breaking Robert out of his momentary trance, “I think we’ll be off now. Get a good look at him if you like, Robert, because you’re never going to see him again.”

 

 

 

 

 

The next couple of months managed to both drag and pass by in a blur at the same time. What should have been Robert’s wedding day came and went, and once the ex-communication procedures had been carried out, Lawrence had delivered him to an institution he promised would ‘cure’ him in almost no time at all.

“This gay thing will pass, Robert, and you’ll thank me for it.”

“I’m not gay, I’m bisexual, and some stranger isn’t going to electrocute it out of me. You’re deluded if you think that actually works.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Robert, it’s mostly just talking. You’ll be staying there for a while, though, obviously. It’s a big place, plenty of cleaning to be done to earn your keep.”

“It’s not going to change me.”

“It will, and I’ll tell you why. I’ll let you in on a secret – when I was much younger, I had, well, _urges_ , sometimes. Towards men. But I knew it was wrong, and I never acted on it, and my father sent me for a few sessions and that was that.”

“You can’t just stop feeling the way you feel. You’ve obviously repressed it so deeply you think it’s gone, but if you were attracted to men once then you still are now.” Robert couldn’t believe what Lawrence was telling him. He’d never suspected it, not for a minute, although looking back it might have explained his reluctance to tell Chrissie why her mum had left.

“I’m most certainly not, and I don’t wish to discuss it any further. Good luck, Robert.” He opened his car door, waiting impatiently for Robert to do the same, before walking him to the entrance, not about to give him any chance to slip away.

“You could have been happy, you know. If you’d accepted it back then.”

“I am happy. Right now I’m ecstatic that I’ve got you away from my daughter. And it hasn’t really worked out too well for you, has it?”

Robert couldn’t argue with that.

 

 

 

 

 

It took a few days for the realisation to hit him that he didn’t _have_ to be there. He wasn’t a part of the church any more, and Lawrence had made it clear he wasn’t welcome back with him and Chrissie.

He had no money, no friends, no family, nowhere to go, no idea what he wanted to do or be – but he still found himself sneaking out of the building in the middle of his sixth morning at the institution, all his sessions having proved so far being that his therapist was as dull as anything and refused to consider that Robert’s problem was any deeper than a ‘crush’. Lawrence himself probably had more chance of turning him straight, and this guy had supposedly had _training_.

It wasn’t a crush. Robert was in love with Aaron, and he was going to get him back. He just had no idea how.

He ran for as long as he physically could without collapsing, very aware of the alarms he had set off when he had escaped, although he doubted anyone would really care enough to come after him. The institution was in the middle of nowhere and he had no idea how he was going to find his way back to Leeds, so he just walked and walked, eventually coming across a small village with a train station that informed him that the journey to Leeds took around an hour and the next train was due shortly. He managed to avoid the ticket inspector all the way to Bramley, where he was then promptly thrown of the train, although after the day - or, really, few months – he’d had, the hour-and-a-bit walk to Aaron’s area of Leeds didn’t really faze him.

There was no answer at Aaron’s door. Robert wondered briefly if anyone had moved into his old flat yet, hoping if they had that they had made life nothing but easy for Aaron, but told himself there was no point dwelling on it too much, and headed down to the bar instead. Adam was there, but refused to tell him anything, and all Angie knew was that he had taken the weekend off.

Robert had an inkling as to where Aaron might have gone, and could only hope he was right. That was how he found himself hitch-hiking to Hotten in the passenger seat of a large white van of a man who called himself Spike and looked like he could easily murder a football team without needing to pause for breath, but who spent most of the ride excitedly telling Robert about how his wife’s cleaning business was going from strength to strength and how well his daughter was getting on at her new secondary school. Spike told him that he would have happily taken him all the way to Emmerdale, but that his daughter had a dance show that he couldn’t miss. He drew him a detailed map of how to get there on the back of a letter about his daughter’s parents’ evening _(“I know the times for each subject off by heart, mate, don’t worry”)_ and scribbled his phone number beneath it, telling Robert he expected a call letting him know whether he had managed to ‘get his man’.

He had no idea what time it was when he found himself outside the Woolpack, having misplaced his watch weeks ago and not owning a phone, and just hoped it would still be open. He braced himself before stepping inside; he had been running off pure adrenaline all day, along with the three bags of crisps Spike had insisted he help himself to when he admitted he hadn’t eaten, and it was only now that the nerves finally hit him. Even if Aaron was there, what was to say he would want to see him?

He had to try, though.

The pub was still fairly busy, but glancing around there was no sign of Aaron, so he headed up to the bar, waiting to catch the attention of the woman he hoped was Chas.

“Yes, love? What can I get ya?” she asked automatically, and then gasped slightly when she actually looked at him. “God, you’re in a bit of a state, aren’t ya? You look exhausted, and no offence, babe, but those clothes have seen better days. You alright?”

“Is – is Aaron here?”

A blonde woman helping herself to a drink behind the bar – Charity? – decided to chime in. “What do you want with – wait, you’re not _him_ , are you? The Mormon?”

“Oh my God, _you’re_ Robert?” Chas exclaimed.

“Yeah. Is he here, then?”

“Sorry, love, you missed him. He headed back to Leeds a few hours ago.”

“Seriously, what happened to you?” Charity asked accusingly, looking him up and down for at least the fourth time.

“Can you two stop hounding the guy and one of you get me the pint I asked for ten minutes ago?” The man was sat slumped at the bar and cast an irritated glance at Robert.

“Shut up, Cain,” Charity snapped. Chas poured him his drink, although most likely just to shut him up. “Come on,” she continued. “There’s definitely a good story here.”

“It’s really not that good. I just had to hitchhike to Hotten and then walk the rest of the way.”

“You _walked_ from _Hotten_ just to see Aaron?”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say about my son, Charity, but that’s the least he deserves,” Chas said.

“I know,” Robert said. “Listen, I know I’ve messed all this up big time and he deserves so much better than me, but I really do love him, Chas, and I just need to see him. I need to tell him I’m sorry for everything, and even if he doesn’t forgive me I need him to know how much I care about him.”

“Well, like she said, he’s not here,” Charity said, walking back around the bar and sliding into the seat beside Cain, who just sighed.

“I’ll find a way back to Leeds, then.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Robert. You’ll catch your death out there,” Chas said, looking at him as if he was an idiot. “Stay here tonight. I’ll call Aaron, and it’s his choice if he comes back or not. But before I do, you’re going to tell me exactly why I should do this for you.”

“I messed everything up, I know that. I treated him badly and I can say it was because I was confused and scared and was going to get into huge trouble if it came out and lose everything – but I know none of that matters, that you don’t care about any of it – that you care about your son, as you should, because he’s amazing, Chas. He’s been nothing but good to me, and he deserves the same, and if I was lucky enough to ever get another chance with him I’d never waste it again. I’ve never regretted anything more than walking away and not fighting harder – I thought I was doing the right thing, but I can see now that I wasn’t. I was trying to hold onto the life that I thought I wanted and needed, but really all I want and need is him. I love him _so_ much Chas, more than I ever thought I could love anyone.”

“You better have meant every word of that, because if you hurt him even once more I won’t hesitate to chop your balls off.”

“She’s not joking, either,” Charity said.

“I promise I won’t.”

“Then I’ll call him.”

As Robert sat at a table in the corner of the pub, surprised at how much he was enjoying his first ever pint, he allowed himself to imagine that this could be his life. Going to the pub with Aaron after work, taking it in turns to buy the drinks. Meeting his family, having them almost accept him in their own weird way. Holding hands and laughing and chatting about nothing in particular, and just being able to _enjoy_ each other’s company without having to hide.

When Chas closed up he went to sit in the back room to wait for Aaron (on the chance he actually came), but he must have dozed off because he awoke to a darkened room and the feeling of lips against his forehead that were achingly familiar but also felt as if they belonged to another lifetime.

“You always do manage to surprise me, Robert Sugden,” Aaron whispered against his skin.

“You came back,” Robert said dumbly.

“Of course I did. I think the bigger shock is that _you_ did. I thought Lawrence would have you locked away forever.”

“I had to leave. I had to find you.”

“Yeah, Mum told me all about your great escape. I can’t believe you did all that for me.”

“I’d go to the ends of the earth for you.” Aaron knew that he meant it.

“Soft git.”

And then Aaron kissed him, and everything that had been missing from his life was back, and it was so much _more_ now because he didn’t have to fight it, didn’t have to pretend. He could just kiss Aaron, and somehow everything fell into place and it was easy and _right_ and he knew that all he had ever really wanted was right there.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert had no money, at all, not a penny. His cards had all been in Lawrence’s name and he obviously didn’t have those any more, and he would now never see the cash Lawrence had promised him to start a new life with once he had put in a sufficient amount of time at the institution.

It was Aaron who suggested that they move to Emmerdale. They could live in the pub, Chas happy to give Robert a job there so he could save up some money, and Aaron would go back to working at the garage. Robert put up a fight at first, knowing it had taken a lot for Aaron to move away from home and start a new life for himself in Leeds. But he wasn’t particularly enjoying the bar work any more, and him and Adam had a vague plan to start their own business once they’d got some cash together. Besides, Robert moving in with Aaron and Adam wasn’t likely to go down well, and as the year’s lease was coming to an end it seemed, all in all, like the best thing to do.

Chas was thrilled to have Aaron home, and was slowly warming to Robert. Even Cain now mostly seemed to tolerate him, a feat Robert would never have thought possible at their first meeting.

Robert’s twenty-fourth birthday rolled around, and Aaron arranged a big Dingle gathering in the pub, but didn’t turn up himself until gone eight o’clock, meaning Robert had spent hours being grilled and harassed by seemingly every relative of Aaron’s as well as an assortment of other villagers. Even Spike popped in for a pint, although he had to leave early as he was cooking for seven of his daughter’s friends who were sleeping over. Robert was starting to worry where Aaron had got to, their last communication having been at midday when Aaron had told him he was nipping out for a few bits for the party.

“Finally,” Robert said when Aaron slid into the seat opposite him, placing a pint in front of him.

“Sorry,” Aaron said, leaning over and pressing a quick peck to Robert’s lips. “Traffic was awful.”

“Where have you been?”

“Manchester.”

“ _Manchester?_ Why? If you didn’t want to spend my birthday with me, you could have just said.” He tried to keep his voice light, but he was beginning to feel genuinely anxious. When they had decided to make a proper go of things, they’d promised to tell each other everything. He couldn’t bear the thought that Aaron wasn’t as into this any more.

“I did want to be with you today. I wish I’d gone another day now; it seemed like a good idea, but now I’m scared you’re going to hate me for it. Just please promise you won’t get angry with me?”

“I could never hate you, Aaron. Just tell me.”

“I found Victoria.”

“You – what? As in – my _sister_ Victoria?”

“Yeah.”

“What the _hell_ , Aaron? What gave you the right to do that?” He went to stand up, but Aaron grabbed him by the arm before he could.

“Please just hear me out.”

“Fine.”

“I’m sorry, okay. I really am. I should have handled this whole thing better. But I know how much you’ve missed her all these years, and I hated that you were missing out on knowing her because of your dad. So I looked her up on Facebook and assumed that the only Victoria Sugden from Yorkshire with an Andy Sugden listed as a friend was her. I messaged her and said that I knew you – I didn’t say anything else about you, don’t worry – and asked her if I could meet her to talk, and she’s in her first year of uni in Manchester so I went there to see her. We ended up talking for ages and she misses you _so_ much Robert. She never believed your dad that you just ran away, and even though she loves him and Andy she says she’s so much happier now she doesn’t live with them. I told her you didn’t know I’d come to see her and that I didn’t know how you’d react, and I didn’t tell her where we live or anything, so it’s all down to you if you want to see her or not. But she’s your sister, and she loves you, and I guess I wanted you to feel as good as I did when I got Liv back. And she reminds me _so_ much of you, Rob. She’s intelligent and funny and ridiculously sarcastic and she even looks a bit like you, and she really wants to see you, but only if you do too. She said it was the biggest relief in the world just to know that you’re okay.”

“You should have told me.”

“I know. I’m really sorry. I messed up, but it’s only because I care about you so much. I want you to be happy.”

“I _am_ happy. You make me happy.”

“And I’m not going anywhere. But you could have her too.”

“I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Okay. And I’m definitely going to make it up to you later for missing most of your birthday, don’t you worry.” That finally earned him a smile from Robert, and he leaned over the table and kissed him.

“I know you were only trying to look out for me,” Robert said when they pulled apart. “I love you so much, Aaron.”

“I love you too.” He fished a small scrap of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table. Robert looked at the number blankly. “Now call your sister.”

 

 

 

 

 

One of the reasons that Aaron and Robert work so well is that, when it comes to the bigger picture, they both want the same things out of life. They both want to love and be loved, to have someone to come home to every day, to know that they have a forever with that person. All that they both really want is to be happy. They both spent so long being unhappy that they sometimes don’t know how to deal with it, so they fight, of course they fight, but mostly because they both feel everything so strongly, because they’re both naturally all-or-nothing sort of people, but they’re both trying to change for the better, for each other.

As for the smaller things, though, they’re in some ways very different. Robert’s free to be the person he really is now, and he loves to be the centre of attention, whereas Aaron prefers to blend into the background. Robert’s managed to get himself a junior management role at a fairly big company, and he _loves_ all the ridiculous corporate stuff, loves the fancy dinners and the board meetings and the buzz words and feels right at home in a suit. Aaron just laughs at all that, much preferring getting his hands dirty at the scrapyard he’s started with Adam, and would choose a burger and chips in the pub over ridiculously small portions at some five-star restaurant any day. When they go on their first holiday together, Robert is up early and eager every day, planning hikes and visits to museums and overpriced tours of famous landmarks _(“they’re landmarks, Aaron, not just ‘old buildings’”)_. Aaron is much happier to spend their days relaxing by the pool or on the beach, followed by getting drunk and having sex anywhere they feel like it (okay, maybe Robert doesn’t complain about that last one).

In many ways, they’re colours and whites – they shouldn’t mix. But they do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> if anyone actually made it to the end of this (did not intend for it to end up being so long!) then any comments would be hugely appreciated :)


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